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Gender Studies

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Username 1Name:Instructor’s Name:Course:Date: Gender StudiesWhy Afro-American and Latino-American feminism have accused of “euro-centrism”other feminisms. Feminism is recognized as a theoretical and political construct that has its origins in euro-centrism and ethno-centrism matrices, created by philosophical, literary and political feministviews that have shaped traditional paradigms in knowledge, social and cultural practices(Canavae 3). Modern feminist movements and ideologies emerged prominently in the 1970s, asthey sought equal rights, ability, status and treatment of women. The groups divided themselvesalong ethnic lines to create African-American, Latino-America, Indian-America and other ethnicmarginalized groups that were seeking equality. The strongest of these were African and LatinoAmerican feminist movements that aggressively sought to eradicate the marginalization of theircommunities by Eurocentric views. African and Latino American feminist thinkers played a major part in centeringunderstanding of race issues of women along the lines of analyses of race, sexuality, gender andclass in European terms (Canavae 3). To form ideology of African and Latino American feministidentity they made connections between the differences between African, European, Native andLatino Americans in terms of how white and non-white each community was. These thinkersidentified the Eurocentric thought in other feminists, which inferiorized black and brown women

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Username 2in America (Springer 1061). They accused other feminists especially the white feministmovement in the prevention attainment of social and political roles by women of an Africanorigin as feminists. Therefore, white feminists have been identified as the restraining model byAfrican American feminists into a “Eurocentric category of feminism which obscured the role ofblack feminists” (Springer 1061). According to Springer (2002), black feminist theoretical viewshave been grounded explicitly on black cultural experiences in America and have gone beyondthe inclusion of black thought in white feminist sociology (1062). The self definition andrepresentation of Latino and African American feminists is a central theme in Black Nationalismthrough the criticism of euro-centrism by white feminists and has been identified as the greatestinfluence over black feminist thinkers. In the end, Latino and African American feminists havesuccessfully euro-centrised white feminists in order to create an identity for themselves.Gender views in “Las vestiduras peligrosas”, by Silvina Ocampo Ocampo’s story is a dichotomy of seduction to the exploitation which runs the entirelength of her story as she depicts female sexual desires. In “Las vestiduras peligrosas”, Ocampotells of Artemia a character that has perverse desires which drives her to danger and death(Klingenberg 1999 240). This story is very close to the world Ocampo is aware off as she tellsexperiences from her immediate reality. The characters are real to the narrator and the reader asactions and experiences are close to the average person. Ocampo has successfully expressed herconcerns over female domination in a highly patriarchal culture (Klingenberg 1988 30). She hastold of how characters like Artemia went through various gender issues, psychological andmental oppression as they had limited discursive power. Ocampo’s entire story is about femininesubversion which she tells specifically from a Latin American point of view. The extremity of

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Username 3sexual perversion in the protagonist Artemia, is evident in how she tries to get men to rape herthrough the wearing of outrageous clothing (Klingenberg 1988 30). Ocampo willingly subjectsher female narrator (Artemia) to rape stories to a level that would make modern Americanfeminists uneasy (Klingenberg 1999 240). Ocampo is like other Latino American writers hasblurred the distinctions between victim and seductress, self deception and lies, truth and fictionand desire and equivocation as compared to north American feminist writers (Klingenberg 1999240). Female sexuality is also represented by the velvet dress. As a symbol of feminine sexuality,Ocampo uses the dress to represent Latin American female sexuality that is private and secrete inthe same manner as the dress is presented in an unobvious symbolic manner.